The Grey Bastards: A Novel (The Lot Lands)

by Jonathan French

  Ignacio directed a crooked grin at the Claymaster. “I thought you said he was a fool.”

  “That don’t make him stupid,” came the reply.

  “Why would it come to that?” Jackal asked the chief. “You can’t tell me you would hand over one of your own to appease some noblewoman.”

  The Claymaster’s eyes lit with anger. “Hispartha sets foot on my lot and demands anything, I’ll put every last frail they send in the dirt. But it better not come to that. If it does, you won’t need to worry about hanging, Jackal. I’ll fuel the Kiln’s ovens with your unthinking carcass.”

  Jackal hadn’t stopped thinking from the moment he entered the room. He turned to Ignacio.

  “Can you keep those cavaleros from talking? Keep their fear alive?”

  Ignacio found that funny and wheezed a laugh. “Keep them from talking and alive? Maybe you are stupid. Me and my men don’t linger much at the castile. We got duties that keep us away. Like patrols. And running bad tidings to the hoofs of half-orc riders that stir up shit.”

  Jackal didn’t need the reproach of this tired, useless man. Besides, Ignacio’s talk of patrols reminded him of something.

  “Bermudo came to the brothel that morning looking for you,” he said. “Thought you’d been there with us. Why was that?”

  Ignacio’s mouth stretched with annoyance. “To dump those milksops on me. You think he shows them the way of things here? No. Passes that pleasure to me.”

  “We’re losing the trail,” the chief said. “Captain ain’t here to make a remedy, Jackal. You are.”

  “Then I’ll head back to Sancho’s and track from there. If Garcia’s body is—”

  “No,” the Claymaster cut him off. “I already sent Oats and that bitch you two voted into this hoof to do just that.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Go to the farrowing shed.”

  Jackal nearly protested, but his mouth locked shut. Something told him this wasn’t more punishing chores. Maybe it was the dead tone of the chief’s command or the way Ignacio became very still, maybe it was the recollection that the hoof had no sows close to birthing a litter. Whatever it was, the command left an uneasy feeling in his gut.

  Without a word, Jackal left the room. He could hear the discussion continuing as he went down the corridor, Ignacio broaching the subject of payment.

  Despite the name, the farrowing shed was a sizable building a little removed from the stables and breeding pens, tucked beneath the wall. Jackal ducked into the low, long structure. As he suspected, the birthing stalls were empty. He made his way down the central aisle, through the gloom, his boots silent in the thick carpet of straw spread over woodchips and sawdust.

  Hogs were the soul of a hoof, the strength. Without them, patrolling the Lots, engaging the thicks, would be nothing but protracted suicide. The sows that came here to deliver the next generation of mounts were provided comfort, quiet, and care. The Claymaster did not allow slopheads inside the farrowing shed, trusting only Grocer, and whatever sworn brethren were requested to assist him, to bring piglets into the world. Jackal had little talent for farrowing. He lacked the patience. The only time he’d been asked to help, Grocer had expelled him from the shed. Oats had replaced him, and five healthy barbarians were soon suckling at their coddled mother’s teats.

  The aisle led to a single room at each end. Jackal doubted the Claymaster had sent him here to inspect the shed’s supplies, so he went left, making for a door that only unfortunate sows ever entered, the ones that no amount of calm and expertise could save if the farrowing took a bad turn.

  The mercy room.

  He opened the door, releasing muffled sounds of pain and panic. The shed was always kept clean, but the reek of sweat and piss, both gravid with fear, struck Jackal’s nostrils. He widened the opening to reveal Hoodwink’s unsettling profile. The pale mongrel did not turn at Jackal’s intrusion, but continued to stare, unblinking, at the wall behind the door. Hood’s hairless skin was the color of dirty linen without even a tinge of grey or green. Behind his back, the other Bastards wondered if he was an albino, but his eyes lacked the strange pink hue found in those with the affliction. No, they were empty, black pits.

  Six whimpering men, naked and chained, knelt before that pitiless gaze, the gags in their mouths stained with snot and tears. Before those ugly drippings reached the cloth, they left a shiny trail through the mustachios worn by every one of the prisoners.

  Bermudo’s new cavaleros.

  Jackal ground his teeth to keep his jaw from falling slack. Ignacio had delivered more than news.

  The men recognized him, too, and all began squirming with renewed vigor. Desperate noises pushed past their gags. Were they pleas or protests? Jackal could not tell. He’d spared them once. But only the woefully ignorant would believe he was there to do it again.

  He stepped next to Hoodwink, but faced the opposite wall, turning his back to the doomed men.

  “Have any of them spoken?” he whispered.

  Hoodwink turned his bald head. “As you hear.”

  The lowing sobs continued. “Claymaster’s mad if he thinks this is the way,” Jackal said.

  Hoodwink replied with nothing but his dead stare. There wasn’t even a flutter of consideration. Every time Jackal looked at this scarred killer, he was reminded of a snake in the act of swallowing its prey. Slow, silent, remorseless, fixed on its cold purpose

  Jackal searched for another path, his thoughts racing and going nowhere. The Claymaster had made his choice. Ignacio had played his part, tricked these men into a trap. They didn’t know the Lots, likely had no idea where they were even once the Kiln was in view, as blind and vulnerable as the piglets born in this shed.

  And Jackal could not save them. The Claymaster claimed he would give Hispartha nothing they demanded. He might not have known, but he lied. He would give them Fetching. If one of these men ever identified her as Garcia’s killer, they would be providing the chief with the chance to be rid of her, absolving the hoof at the same time. Bermudo would have his hanging, the marquesa her vengeance, and the Claymaster would be free of the woman he never wanted in his ranks. Oats and Jackal would not have the votes to prevent it.

  Unlike the death mask of his fellow executioner, Jackal’s face must have betrayed his intent, for Hoodwink spoke, his thin voice at the edge of hearing.

  “Work fast.”

  Jackal turned and held out a hand to the men. Six pairs of eyes, rolling with white fright, bulged up at him.

  “Calm, now. We are just going to remove your gags.” He almost choked on the lie and had to bite back a scream as relief lulled the men into silence. Their faces remained stretched and uncertain. Jackal moved around behind the rightmost man. Hood slid to the other end of the line. The head beneath Jackal’s gaze was trembling, the hair drenched. The flesh at the back of the neck had darkened while under Ul-wundulas’ hot care, a crescent border separating the paler skin below. Jackal fixated on that line while he drew his knife.

  The man next in line was watching, craning his neck to see what his future held.

  Jackal met his eyes and the deception was uncloaked.

  The man pushed out a stifled wail, nearly drowning out the squelching thuds of Hoodwink’s dagger punching into exposed flesh in rapid succession. He dropped each man with a single thrust through the back of the neck, moving with brutal efficiency. Four cavaleros were dead before they realized what was happening. The fifth, the screamer, was too focused on Jackal to notice his end approaching in Hood’s crimson-speckled hand.

  But the sixth man did.

  He lurched forward, the need to live making him fast as a hare, clumsy as a drunk. His first step propelled him away from Jackal, his second brought him fully to his feet, but he tripped on the third, head and shoulder bashing the door closed. He rolled over, awkward with his hands
shackled behind his back. Spine against the door, he pushed up on his heels, shoulders and chains sliding on the wood. His stricken face was defiant, an earnest, untenable warning against pursuit.

  Hoodwink’s dagger flew into his chest just as he regained his feet, the blade slapping into the man’s heart. His defiance broadened to confusion as his legs gave out, dragging him to his rump and lifelessness.

  Jackal had not made a move. He turned to find Hoodwink standing beside the last living cavalero, a hand pressing down on one shoulder to keep him in place. He needn’t have bothered. The man’s mind was gone. He was still screaming, howling through his gag until his breath gave out, then filling his lungs and doing it all over again.

  Hoodwink’s stare was fixed on Jackal, calm and expectant.

  Chapter 6

  The feel of a throat parting beneath sharp steel was still in Jackal’s hand. The blood was washed away, but that sickening resistance lingered. Jackal clenched his fist tight to banish the phantom sensation and entered the hoof’s supply hall.

  He found Grocer there, as expected, the old coin clipper muttering orders at a pair of slopheads and watching their every move with ingrained distrust. Since Warbler went nomad, Grocer was the last founding member of the hoof left other than the chief. It was widely known, but never said aloud, that the quartermaster was actually a frailing, the product of a half-orc mother and a human father. Thin, stingy, and cunning, he managed his hoard of supplies with ill-tempered efficiency. He was so covetous that he never cut his hair and it fell past his bony ass in a grey-streaked mass of twisted locks. Still, Jackal had seen the aging cuss in a knife fight and would not cross him without damn good reason.

  “I have no liniment to spare, Jackal,” Grocer told him as he approached the supply counter.

  “Liniment? I’m not here for that.”

  Grocer sneered. “Aren’t you? Figured your nipples would be raw from teat-feeding all those whelps at Beryl’s.”

  The old coot had a good laugh at his own jest, all the while directing his minions to move various sacks and barrels. It was obvious he was ignorant of the cavaleros. The Claymaster had taken pains to limit knowledge of that skullduggery.

  Hood and Jackal had not moved the bodies until night fell over the fortress, taking them away from the farrowing shed in the wheeled cart used to transport deceased hogs. They burned the corpses in the Kiln’s ovens, tossing them onto the fires the same as cordwood. Jackal wasn’t happy about joining the company of Hoodwink and Ignacio, the chief’s loyal dogs. And he didn’t plan on lying down with them for long. After a sleepless night, he had made up his mind and gone to the supply hall before the chief assigned any further tasks.

  “I need one of the Sludge Man’s birds,” he told Grocer. “Claymaster wants to send another message.”

  Grocer eyed him for a moment before stalking back into his stores. Jackal could hear the old coin clipper berating the unseen slopheads that drew the duty of helping him. Years ago, Jackal had loved his tenure in the supply hall and grew to love Grocer too. It was an affection he had not held on to during his time as a sworn brother. These days, he just found the aged frailing tiresome. Grocer returned with a wicker cage containing a docile squab. Jackal took it from his resisting fingers.

  As he left the supply hall, the old mongrel’s voice called after him.

  “I want that cage back!”

  Not bothering to respond, Jackal began making his way across the yard.

  Fuck the Claymaster.

  And Ignacio.

  And their schemes.

  Jackal had just been cornered into the butchery of half a dozen men. It was a trap he helped fashion, but stumbling into it and staying in it were two different mistakes. He needed to know why that horse returned to the castile. If Garcia’s body turned up as well, all the killings would count for nothing. Jackal needed to know the corpse had made its way to the Sludge Man. The Claymaster may have sent a message, but whatever answer the Sludge Man returned was not likely to reach Jackal’s ears. He wouldn’t trust one the chief provided anyway.

  No, he needed to go to the source, to the Old Maiden Marsh, and speak directly with the Sludge Man. It was a vast amount of wetland to cover, and no one knew exactly where the bog trotter lived. Jackal could have used some help, but the only riders he trusted implicitly were already off at the chief’s bidding. Oats and Fetch could be away for days more, and he couldn’t wait. He needed to be gone before Grocer made mention of the bird.

  It was a grievous defiance, one that would likely cause the chief to call for his ousting from the hoof. Let him try. He was allowing orcs to live, executing cavaleros, and hiding it from the hoof. Jackal would turn any attempt to get rid of him into his bid for leadership.

  He was just entering the shadow of the Kiln’s great chimney, the last black vestiges of the men he’d helped murder still leaking into the sky, when he spotted the wizard. He was sitting in the shade, his chubby form resting upon a small carpet. As he drew closer, Jackal saw his eyes were closed.

  “An errand of great import, friend?” the wizard asked as Jackal passed.

  Jackal stopped and looked down to find the fat mongrel looking at him with a lazy grin.

  “No,” Jackal told him.

  “Wonderful!”

  The wizard stood, agile in spite of his bulk. He was a good bit shorter than Jackal, but his turban made them appear of an even height.

  “I beg to accompany you.”

  Jackal snorted, slightly taken aback. “Beg all you want. No.” He kept walking.

  “Brave,” the wizard said, catching up. The movement caused the gold beads dangling from his chin braid to swing. “But I have heard it is dangerous to go alone into the Old Maiden Marsh.”

  Jackal stomped to a halt. Had he already been discovered? Could the wizard divine his thoughts?

  “How do you know where I ride?” he snarled, leaning down threateningly.

  The wizard’s smile only broadened. He placed the heels of his hands together and gestured at the caged bird in Jackal’s hand.

  “This small, feathered soul would return there this instant were you to release him. Simple creatures follow familiar instincts, my friend.”

  “You know the marsh?”

  “I know the bird. Alas, like much of Ul-wundulas, I have not seen the Old Maiden. But I wish to, so I shall come.”

  “The fuck you will,” Jackal said, turning away.

  “I think you know I walk where I wish.”

  Jackal stopped. The wizard’s voice retained a courteous, nearly fawning quality, yet there was a threat buried in the thick folds of politeness. Turning back around, Jackal met the shorter half-orc’s dancing eyes.

  “Yes, you do,” he said, putting menace in his own tone. “That was a crafty trick, showing up in the passage.”

  “Truly, I did not intend to cause a stir.”

  “I just bet you didn’t. You got a name?”

  “Uhad Ul-badir Taruk Ultani,” the wizard said with a small dip of his chin.

  Jackal blinked. “That name is a fucking nightmare. I’m going to call you Crafty.”

  The wizard smiled. “This is what you would call a ‘hoof name’?”

  “This is what I call a name I can say. And as far as I know, you aren’t in this hoof yet, because I don’t recall a vote.”

  “Indeed, this is so,” the wizard said.

  Jackal smiled. If he took the Tyrkanian along, he would be depriving the Claymaster of his favored guest. That was good. He was also giving himself time to take the measure of this stranger. That was better. If the wizard’s powers extended beyond surviving being cooked in the Kiln tunnel, he could be useful in the marsh. If not, his flabby body would make a heartier meal for a rokh than Jackal’s. Outrunning him wouldn’t be difficult.

  Jackal clapped the soft flesh of the wizard�
�s shoulder. “If you’re not in the hoof, that makes you a hopeful! A slophead. So come along, Crafty, and see the Old Maiden Marsh.”

  The wizard’s plump face beamed. “Much gratitude! Do you think your Claymaster will approve?”

  Jackal shook his head as he turned to go. “I don’t much care. Besides, you walk where you wish, remember? Let’s see if you can ride there too.”

  After going back to roll up his little carpet and tie it to a shapeless bundle of bags, Crafty slung the whole affair across his body.

  “Might I know your name, friend?”

  “Jackal.”

  “Ah!” Crafty held up a finger. “So named because you can eat anything, have an odious laugh, and mate even with ugly women!”

  Jackal ground to a halt, his fist clenching, but as he spun on the wizard he saw the mischievous grin on his face. So, a sense of humor. And a good one.

  Jackal smiled and relaxed. “You got two out of three.”

  They found Biro waiting at the stables. The youth worked quickly, getting Hearth ready to ride. Jackal gave the slop a nod of approval after giving the hog a quick inspection.

  “Saddle one of the scouts’ hogs,” he told Biro as he mounted. “Our new friend is coming along with me.”

  The youth moved to obey, but Crafty stopped him with a gentle touch on the arm.

  “No need for the saddle, I am thinking.”

  “You ride bareback?” Jackal asked, not sure whether to be impressed or doubtful.

  “You think it unwise with these beasts?”

  “You’ve never ridden a barbarian before?”

  Crafty seemed amused. “Such an interesting name for the animal. No, I have never.”

  Jackal clamped his teeth and decided to say nothing more.

  Biro brought a hog up from the pens. It was one the hoof used to train slopheads, but a solid mount. Biro, for all his youth, was no fool and had selected a larger hog for the corpulent wizard.

  “Much gratitude,” Crafty said to the boy. Biro released the hog’s swine-yanker and stepped away. Jackal watched while Crafty leaned in close to the barbarian’s face. He stood there, hunched over, for a long moment, then straightened. Without apprehension, he went around and easily swung his large frame astride the beast.